Winning Pepper
by dreaming-up-fantasies
Summary: Tony is busy being Iron Man and trying to stop a new enemy but while doing all of that can he win Pepper's heart?
1. Chapter 1

Tony landed in his Iron Man suit with his normal pose, on his knee and fist. He was facing another Iron Man wannabe. A bunch of them kept popping up, with almost useless suits but none the less causing enough damage for SHIELD to call upon him. Natasha had sometimes 'accidentally' left behind papers that had information about a new threat that she knew Tony could easily take out. This one had a blue and silver suit. The only thing Tony was impressed with was the design but he didn't even have a helmet! Idiot.

Tony raised his arm and shot out a repulsor beam at the man who surprisingly blocked it. Tony realized this one would be harder to defeat, though he knew he'd be able to do it. JARVIS was pinpointing the weaknesses when the man shot a red beam back at him, which he ducked from but another one hit him in the chest and made him take a few steps back. With that he flew into the air and circled around the man, who couldn't fly, and shot at him more. He saw the man was laying on the ground so he landed a few yards away from him.

"Like my dummy?" said a voice to the right of Tony. Tony looked over to briefly see a man in a metal suit with a helmet before he was hit and blown back into a brick wall, which he later suspected was put there on purpose. He slowly got up from the rubble of bricks that he crashed through. He felt a small pain in his back but he chose to ignore it and face the real threat.

"Tony Stark. I've been meaning to see you and hopefully the last thing you'll see is me. Your work saving the world is needed no more. It's my turn to be the hero. I've only done this damage to get your attention. Now, time to die," He said rather psychotically.

They started to fight. The two were almost equally matched but Tony had JARVIS as an advantage. The guy was smart though and apparently had been setting this up for a while. He had carefully positioned brick walls throughout the area where he would throw Iron Man back into; which he did several times. After taking several risks and ignoring most of JARVIS's constant reminding that what he was about to do wasn't a good idea because it would drain his power, Tony successfully beaten the guy and the SHIELD agents around took care of him.

Tony stood there, a good while away from the maniac man who had surrendered. He looked over to see Natasha nod at him in approval then was suddenly blown back again very hard. The guy had used his last bit of power and energy to try to kill Tony. The impact hurt and he could feel pain in his back and blood dripping down his leg inside of the suit. He grunt and slowly climbed out, barely even able to stand but he had to show that the guy had not gotten to him. He was now surrounded by shield agents with big guns and one guy with a bow and arrow. They had gotten him. Tony felt himself sway and quickly went up into the sky, ignoring JARVIS, and flew home. He couldn't have the SHIELD agents thinking he was weak or hurt after a fight. He had an image to keep up.

Tony fell onto the landing pad with 7% energy left. He cursed and laid there, hoping it would regenerate power soon and fast. He heard the door open and was delighted and worried to see Pepper. As he had thought, she shrieked when she saw him and rushed over.

"Tony! Oh my-" she started to say.

"I'm fine. Just help me inside," he said.

She helped him disassemble the Iron Man suit from his body and helped him inside. As he suspected, his shin and leg were covered in blood. Tony was exhausted though and laid down on the couch. He jerked up when he felt hot water touch his wound, she was cleaning it up for him.

"What happened!"

"Later," he mumbled, meaning he was too tired to explain it now. Not that he would even fully explain it to her anyway. She worried too much. He heard her talking to him but he didn't register what she was saying at all. He slowly drifted off into sleep, with his back still aching.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony woke up later in the night, or even very early morning. He didn't care what time it was, he just knew that it was still dark out and that his back faintly ached but his leg hurt more. Tony leaned up to look at it and saw that there were several very deep cuts on it and he knew something else was wrong with it since it ached while he was laying down.

He sighed and laid back down while his thoughts turned to the man in the metal suit. He was clever and had it in for Tony, but why? Tony had never seen that man before in his entire life. It wasn't surprising that he imitated the Iron Man suit, a lot of people had been doing that. What surprised him was his power and energy. His thoughts whirled around as he thought more about the guy, who was thankfully somewhere in a SHIELD holding cell.

Tony bolted upright when he heard a soft sighing noise nearby. He looked over and saw Pepper asleep in a chair. He titled his head back in frustration. She didn't have to be here with him every single second to make sure he's okay! He loved the thought, and her even more, but he was afraid that if something ever happened to him, he didn't want Pepper to think it would be her fault because she didn't worry enough. Or something crazy like that. Wait… Tony just confessed he loved her. In his head. Thank god it was in his head. Yep, definitely thinking crazy. Maybe he had a concussion.

But Tony knew he didn't and he knew he really did love Pepper and had been trying to show it but she had a barrier up. She didn't want to get connected with him because she had seen how he had treated all his other one night stands. He stayed on the couch and watched as the room slowly lit up with sunlight; his eyes wide open.

He didn't go back to sleep. He couldn't. Not with the metal man on his mind. Somehow Tony knew he'd find a way out and come after him. The question posing the problem in his mind though was when? Tony knew that, according to Pepper, he would most likely be banned from using the Iron Man suit until his leg was back to normal, and healing process for Tony always went so slow because he felt he needed to work, to do something productive.

Pepper finally woke up and her and Tony had a small argument about him having to stay on the couch. She won the argument but when Pepper disappeared into the bathroom, Tony slowly eased his way off the couch and hopped on one foot into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee that JARVIS already made him.

Pepper eyed him as she walked back in the room but didn't say anything. Tony drank his coffee silently and watched Pepper as she was glued to her phone.

"You have a meeting today," Pepper said, knowing she'd probably have to go to it for him.

"Can't go."

"Just as I thought," Pepper said in return.

"I'm busy today," Tony said lightly.

"No your not. You have to rest or I'll have Happy take you to the hospital to get your leg looked at," she said, walking towards the door.

"My leg is fine," he said, both Pepper and himself knew he was lying though. "I'm going to be in the workshop today. I won't go anywhere," he finished, to make her happy.

"Fine. Just don't blow up the wall. Bye," She called out, walking out the door. The front door slammed shut and Tony stood there, not quite knowing what to do. He had several things he wanted to do but he didn't know where to start.

He very excruciatingly slowly made his way down the stairs to his workshop. He really should have thought the whole elevator thing out more, in the end he decided against it. Tony got on the computers and had JARVIS get him information about the metal man. Today was going to be a day full of researching him.


End file.
